Wednesday, July 28, 2010

I read with shock that John Reese(the guy pictured above), the Internet Marketing world version of Roger Banister, of the 4 minute mile, has abandoned his Internet Marketer's dream lifestyle to a life of a Minimalist!

His worldly possessions is now packed in this:

I think that white rectangular object below his backpack is his Apple Notebook.

To know a little bit more about John Reese, click here for a short writeup about him.

Here is the email that he wrote to me:

=========================================================

Subject:

Why I just sold all of my possessions (and killed my Facebook account)

And maybe you are too, and that's what makes us
"special." Or at least that's what our moms always
told us.

I like doing "experiments" on myself. I think it's
a great way to grow as a person and to learn more
about yourself -- which can help in one's personal
or business life.

I once read how Leonardo Da Vinci slept only
about 3-4 hours a day by taking short 20-45 minute
naps throughout a 24 hour cycle.

Many years ago, I tried my own sleep experiment
after I found myself pulling a lot of "all nighters."

I decided to go every other night without sleep.

So I would stay awake for stretches of 30-35 hours
straight and then crash for 9-12 hours. I got a lot
of work done by doing this.

And I was able to do this for about 3 months straight -
sleeping only every other night.

There was only one problem... it put me in the hospital.

It had weakened my immune system and I ended up
with a bad case of vertigo. Horrible, horrible stuff.
I was basically DIZZY all day, everyday, for about
2 weeks until it finally went away.

So I, obviously, went back to a normal sleep schedule
and refused to pull "all nighters" anymore. I had bad
insomnia for a long time but eventually got over it.

If you're pulling all nighters and going without sleep,
I recommend you don't. It's just not worth the damage
it can do to your health.

But I've done many other "full immersion" types of
experiments on myself over the years, and most of
them didn't have bad health results - thankfully. :)

My point is... you can learn a lot about yourself if
you take yourself out of your normal comfort zone
and really 'challenge' yourself by trying little experiments
and personal challenges.

AND I'M DOING IT AGAIN.

Check this out...

I just finished selling (or giving away) all of my personal
possessions.

Not too long ago my life consisted of a massive 6-bedroom
house (with many rooms I never even went into!) and
5 cars. Yes, FIVE cars. I'm a car guy, what can I say. ;)

I had accomplished what many consider to be the
"American Dream." I had the huge house and all the
toys. The Lamborghini, Ferrari, BMWs, a Rolex
collection, an expensive wardrobe, amazing furniture,
a massive home theater, a 1,000 gallon saltwater
aquarium, the works.

And now I have NONE of it. And I'll explain why in
a moment...

Here are some "quick facts"...

For the first time in over 20 YEARS...

- I don't own a car.

- I don't own any furniture.

- I don't own a TV.

- I don't own any books.

- I don't own a huge closet full of clothes.

AND...

- I don't have a HOME. Not a house,
or apartment, or anything.

By now you're probably thinking...

"John, what the hell are you doing!?"

I decided to do all of this because I wanted
to do a new experiment on myself...

It's a challenge of MINIMALISM.

If you haven't yet heard about minimalism,
or read anything about it, you should. Not
only can it (I believe) improve the quality
of your life but it can also make your business
a lot more profitable.

Minimalism is essentially focusing only on
the 3-4 most important things in your life
(or business) and ELIMINATING THE REST.

There many opinions on minimalism and how
to apply it, and some approach it differently.
Do some Google searches for "minimalism"
and you'll find lots of great blogs about it.

It's really a growing 'revolution' of sorts.

I don't agree with everything he teaches, but a
decent book you can read is "The Power Of Less"
by Leo Babauta; and he's someone with 6 kids.
That will get you started.

Everyone will have their own take on minimalism.
But I'm willing to bet you can benefit from it.

WHAT I HAVE LEFT...

So you're probably wondering, if I got rid of
all that stuff, what the heck do I actually have
left? And how will I live?

I still have all of my money and investments. I didn't pull
a Christopher McCandless ("Into The Wild") and burn all
of my money. This experiment isn't about that. So I still
have all of my businessess (and their assets) as well as
a valuable .COM collection, etc. etc.

But as far as personal "things" go, I currently only have
what I listed above. I'll explain more as to the "WHY"
in a just a second...

WHERE ON EARTH WILL I LIVE?

The answer is... Everywhere.

I am just going to travel the world non-stop for awhile.
It may be for a year or for 10+ years. I don't know yet
and that's part of the adventure. I have structured
things so I can travel the world INDEFINITELY and plan
to do so for a very long time.

As many of my long-time subscribers know, I love to
travel. I've been to every continent in the world except
for Antarctica. (And hope to visit their soon.) But even
as much as I love to travel, I was only taking a few
trips a year. So now that's all going to change.

BUT TRAVEL ISN'T THE ONLY REASON I'M DOING THIS...

Here's what I've discovered about myself...

My level of happiness all comes down to my level of STRESS.

And my stress level is mostly due to having the feeling
of being OVERWHELMED. I had so many possessions
to manage and so many things going on in my life that it
was making me a bit crazy. (More than I already am.)

I found that my CREATIVITY has really suffered because
of this. It's like the brain only has so much available RAM
like a computer, and everything we own and do and manage
takes up that space. It doesn't leave a lot of room left for
creativity.

So essentially, I wanted my brain back.

I wanted to have what I call "Freedom Of Thought." I want to
have so few distractions and things taking up space in my
brain that I'm free to use as much of my brain as possible to
think of exciting new ideas and fully appreciate new
experiences.

* I did also realize that all of that "stuff" that I thought was
the "American Dream" was mostly based on EGO. But
that's a discussion for another day.

As many of my customers already know, late last year I
started a new company to develop Video Games. It's been
a dream of mine for many years and I finally decided to
pursue it. Well, this new business (along with other projects)
really demands maximum creativity from me. So I wanted
to try this new 'experiment' to give myself the best chance
at being able to come up with amazing new ideas.

AND IT'S ALREADY WORKING.

I'm currently on Day 3 of my journey. I moved out of
California about a week ago, then spent a few days visiting
my family in Florida, and then 3 days ago I 'officially' set
out on this "Minimalism Adventure" and flew up to
Toronto, Canada (where I am now) to visit my good friend,
Dean Jackson.

In the first 3 days, I've already come up with some
unbelievable new ideas for my businesses. And this
is only just the beginning.

I would like to challenge you to look at your business (and life)
and see how you can apply the Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule)
and eliminate the things that aren't essential to your goals --
or things that take away from the more important parts of
reaching your goals.

I recently deleted my personal Facebook account (that had
5,000 'friends') and it was one of the best things I ever did.

I was finding that Facebook was one big waste of my time.
I was logging in multiple times a day and it was robbing me
of time I should have been spending on more important
things.

Don't get me wrong, I think Facebook has decent marketing
uses, but I think for most entrepreneurs it's better used
for brands (with Business Page accounts) than as a personal
account. For me and all of the businesses I am involved
with, Facebook does not fall into the "20" part of the 80/20
rule. PPC, SEO, buying media (which includes Facebook Ads),
and other strategies out-produce it by a massive amount.
But that's a rant for another day. ;-)

After recently telling someone about what I am doing
they said...

"But, John, I gotta tell you... it really sounds like you're
just running from life."

To which I replied...

"No, you don't understand, I'm running TO life."

Okay it's time for me to go and pack up my stuff -- even,
though, it only takes me about 5 minutes. ;-)

I'm heading to Europe for a few months tomorrow as I continue
on my journey.

I remembered that I was watching this documentary movie "The Age of Stupid" on Channel News Asia one day and the thought occurred to me that if we have a choice, is there anything that we can do to help the Climate Change situation?

Already, Singapore has been facing flash floods after many decades of not getting one! Isn't it clear signs that we are heading into troubled waters.

At the same time, I was reading up on the latest gadget from Apple: iPad and iPhone 4 and I was musing about whether having them and using them could help the world heal?

Apple iPad(or Apple iTouch retouched?)

Apple iPhone 4.0

I bet I could write a 1000 word essay on this and I'm not going to do it here. I think that it would be another post for another day.

Imagine a better and cleaner world if we were all to use the iPad and the iPhone 4 responsibly to direct policies to improve on the Climate Change or should I say the Climate Catastrophe that in impending.

In The Age of Stupid, the message was clearly stated that if we don't change our current lifestyle by 2015, it would be too late!

So, does John have a solution to this madness? Or is John doing this for another reason?